


When Time and Flames Ignite.

by Leoithne



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Four Elements, M/M, Magic! John, Magic! Sherlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2014-09-27
Packaged: 2018-02-19 00:31:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2367653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leoithne/pseuds/Leoithne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where magic exists and it's bound with power, the Masters of the Elements hold the reins of the Magic Society, thanks to their extraordinary abilities. Howevere, there are more peculiar powers, rare, extinct powers...<br/>What if they were nor extinct at all?<br/>What if Time and Fire are doomed to meet?<br/>What if two lives so different, so distant, and yet so close, suddendly faced each other?<br/>Two men trying to escape from the Magic Society, from their being different, two men fleeing from themselves, will find in one another the path on where to walk.<br/>Together.<br/>Obviously, it's a Johnlock story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Time and Flames Ignite.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IdaC91](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IdaC91/gifts).
  * A translation of [When Time and Flames ignite.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2334392) by [IdaC91](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IdaC91/pseuds/IdaC91). 



> Hello everyone who's reading this or just passing by.  
> This wonderful story is being written by the marvellous [IdaC91](http://archiveofourown.org/users/IdaC91/pseuds/IdaC91) who was kind enough to let me read it when she first came out with this idea. She's writing it in Italian and, because I find her story lovely and absorbing, I have decided, with her consent, to translate it into English so that a wider range of readers could benefit from it.  
> Ida, do remember that you are one of the loveliest people I've known in my whole life and that I held my conversations with you, our follies, the dearest! 
> 
> Enjoy your reading!

He was running breathlessly in the alley, swift and fleeing, silent as a cat, akin to a shadow. His shade, wrapped in a dark coat that swung according to his brisk walk, was only lit by the rare streets lamps and by the sky of a nocturnal London, clear and cloudless. A waxing moon smiled on the blue background, stars as infinitesimal dots contouring it.

He was dealing with the umpteenth chase, for his umpteenth case regarding the umpteenth homicide. The thirty-seventh of his career, to be precise. He stopped before a door at the end of the alley, with panting, but still regular breath, despite the long run. The man he was chasing would have appeared in a while. He had scrupulously calculated everything. In his useless attempt to flee from him, the criminal had hidden inside a pub. He had not been artful, though. _Boring_. That criminal hadn’t got the slightest idea with whom he was dealing. An unforgivable mistake. He would cut off his path by waiting him at the rear door. When he reached his destination, the man with the coat halted and waited. If only he could be what he really was, if only he could show what he was really capable of…

He bitterly thought about his condition – it would have taken the thug about seven boring minutes to get out from the door – and he isolated himself within a contemplative silence. During his brief life span, he had been called in different ways, one more derogatory than the previous. “Freak” was the most recurring one and, perhaps, even the most complimentary. Not that he was really concerned about what the others thought. He was used to that. Too bad that, if those idiots had known the truth about his identity,  the term “freak” would have paled in comparison with the words which they would have certainly shouted. Those words would also be the last ever to come out from their mouths.

Unique and uncommon people were always labelled that way, he was often reminded by his family. _Family_. An ironic smile wrinkled his lips at the mere thought of it. Exactly those people who had restrained him, exactly his _beloved_ _ones_ – or supposedly so – who had tried since forever to imbue this lesson into him. They had failed in every possible way. It would never work, not with him at least. Before what he was now, before the insults towards his inappropriate cleverness, before all that running to catch assassins and swindlers, before his unusual profession, before anything, there had been another fundamental problem, bigger and more dangerous than any other problem, and that problem dwelt inside him.

Actually, the problem was _HE_.

For a brief and ephemeral period of his life, he had thought that the people _like him_ could be considered as something extraordinary, as something absolutely important, considering their rarity. But it had been a tremendously sentimental and inopportune thought, immediately erased by the freezing cold truth, immediately removed from his own mind. How _stupid_ he had been! But he had been just a child back then, he excused himself.   

The population would have never been ready to accept those like him. Truth be told, the Society believed, ignorantly, that his kin was extinct, erased, irrevocably removed from the planet. Or, at least, they hoped so. Yet, they had to change their minds the same day he was born.  


His family had been astonished, even shocked, contrarily to what had happened with his brother Mycroft. That magnificent older brother, so brilliant, so perfect. So _boring_. How had it happened that such a respectable, such an admired family with such a high position inside the British society could have such a specimen among its ranks? Genetically speaking, how had such an event been possible?

The **Glacial Men** , or Ice-men, that was how the Holmes were called, generation after generation.  
On their left wrist stood out, with immense pride by their part, the **Brand** which certified their power. A six-pointed snowflake of the darkest blue, underneath a Revealing Cuff, as imposed by the laws of the **Magic Society**. That stupid and useless Society of Idiots.

The **M** agic **S** ociety represented a hierarchic administration, incommensurably powerful and incredibly ancient, which controlled those who could still boast of their own magic abilities founded on the **Four Elements** : Air, Water, Fire, and Earth, and their immediate derivatives. At its apex, it counted the last three holders of the **Pure Powers** , or, in other words, the only humans who possessed powers derived from a single Element. They were called **Masters** and nobody was allowed to know their names nor their faces. They reigned uncontested from their manors, location unknown, and they laid down the law thanks to their powerfulness. Ages ago, another descent, that of Time, had held the power, but it was extinct nowadays. The other holders of the Pure Powers, envious and attracted to the dark and immense power of Time, had managed to make them “disappear” mysteriously. Rumours said that they had all died because of many experiments; others, on the contrary, supported the idea that they had escaped through their **Space Doors** (doors leading to other worlds, other times) to seek shelter and to never come back. Whatever the cause, the result had been that, despite their immense power, the Time Travellers had unequivocally and completely vanished. In that age, after the Great Magic Wars, which had overturned the Western World and had decimated the magic population, having a Brand was a blessing, a privilege that placed you above anything else and, eventually, anyone else. The Brand became blatant at the age of six, when children were about to start school. Now and then, in very peculiar cases, some children were able to display their abilities even before the appearance of the Brand, whenever they found themselves in particularly intense peril. As they turned six, those blessed with magic skills were censused and addressed to their appropriate Training Schools.  
  
The Holmes were the only one family left who could be proud of having inherited the Power of Ice, a combination of Air and Water. This status had granted them incommensurable respect and power. Obviously, carrying the trace of such a power on your own skin and in your own blood, made you unique and dreadful. However, his story was different. He was born _different_ , he was born _Pure_. Moreover, he was born with an incredibly rare pureness. There existed no Pure Master who had the dominion over that Element.

As he turned six, the Holmes’ second-born, Sherlock, had witnessed the appearance of a different Brand on his wrist, a Brand that had shocked everyone around him. While his physical aspect matched the typical traits of his family – prominent cheekbones, alabaster skin, a thousand icy hues in his eyes, midnight black curls – there was no trace of ice in his blood, no snowflake on his wrist. The first signs of this rueful event had been blatant even before he turned six, when, in one of his heartrending tantrums, a tiny Sherlock had set the curtains of his brother’s room on fire with a single glance. That event had pushed the Holmes to keep their son always under strict control, to subject him to many – obviously secret – exams, which had led to nothing, apart from the emotive and raging estrangement of their own child. Much as they wanted to deny it, much as they wanted to hide it, the issue was clear and undeniable. It was even _burning_.  
  
Sherlock was one of those Kissed by Fire. He was, accordingly to the current definition, a **H-Dragon** , a Human Dragon. He considered that nickname extremely inappropriate, since he hadn’t any wings on his back nor he spit fire, but the vulgar idiocy had begotten that term and he could not get rid of it. On his pale wrist stood out the image of a scarlet flame, which burned like ardent embers in the darkness and literally shone whenever he used his power. Still, there was something more. Sherlock was _The Last Dragon_. Except him, there was no one in the world who shared his kind of power. With the exception of the power of Time, Fire was certainly the most dangerous one. The Great Magic Wars had proven it. The last H-Dragons had led the rebellion against the Magic Society, but they had been hideously defeated by the current Air Master. There had been no trace, no clue of a specimen like him ever since. He didn’t mind being unique. Matter-of-factly, he was already unique. Yet, this uniqueness represented a menace. H-Dragons were considered, within the collective imagination, the greatest enemies of the government. They had to be eliminated at any cost. His family knew that too well. For this reason they had decided to conceal his true identity. When it had been time for the census, they temporarily hid his magic ability by clouding Sherlock’s Brand. They censused him as **Human**. The scandal which followed lasted for months and never really disappeared. Thenceforth he had always been the different one, the _ordinary_ one. He, that wasn’t ordinary at all.

He had used the long years spent locked up inside the Holmes Mansion to dominate his immense power. But he was starting to be affected by it more and more. Withstanding those flames, that ardour which burnt deep inside, was a torture indeed. During those years, he locked his power in a dark corner of his Mind Palace and dedicated himself fully to the science of deduction. He discovered that the flames within him were irresistibly attracted to danger, homicides, unsolved cases, and he studied them one by one until he found the purpose of his life. He invented his own job, Consulting Detective, he abandoned his family and devoted himself to his new occupation, giving help to anyone who had a case which caught his attention. At the beginning, amid rumours and fleeing glances, it had not been easy. Nevertheless, he was a member of the Holmes family, therefore the fear generated by his own name shielded him and opened many doors for him, the one of New Scotland Yard included. Nobody knew about his true power, nobody had the slightest clue about it, even the DI Lestrade, who often required his services, was blissfully unaware of everything. Yet, some of Lestrade’s subordinates could swear they had seen the flames dancing in his icy irises whenever the case was particularly interesting or whenever he was furious.  
  
An unexpected noise brought Sherlock abruptly back to Earth. It was impossible. Only three of the expected seven minutes had passed. A blinding light momentarily deprived him of his sight. He half-opened his eyelids and noticed that the outlines of the door were burning bright. What the hell was happening? In the exact moment when he stretched his hand towards the door, the light vanished and the door opened. Before him there was no sign of the assassin.  


End file.
